Maintaining users' privacy and the privacy of information generated
by or belonging to users is a prime objective of Computer Services.
Computer Services staff with access to users' private physical or
electronic space or information stored in that space, will always act to
protect users' privacy to the fullest extent possible.

Office Space - Whenever possible, users will be notified before a
CS staff member enters a user's office. A user request for support
or submission of a trouble report constitutes permission to enter
an office for the purpose of servicing that request.

Electronic Mail - Computer Services' staff members who have access
to electronic mail directories on multi-user computer systems will not
view users' private mail except in the following situations :

If requested to view a piece of mail for problem determination or to
analyze a bounced mail message.

If necessary in order to locate a corrupt piece of mail that is
causing problems with the user's computer.

When bounced mail messages are automatically forwarded to the
Computer Services' staff person designated as "postmaster" on each
multi-user system, that staff member may read the mail to the extent
necessary to ascertain the problem. For incoming bounced messages,
the postmaster will attempt to forward the mail to the correct local
user. Outgoing bounced mail will be discarded.

When suspected illegal or prohibited activity becomes known to a
Computer Services' staff person through viewing a user's private
electronic or physical space (according to these guidelines), the
activity will be reported to the Director of Computer Services and
in the case of electronic space, the information will be sequestered to prevent
alteration. The Director will initiate standard campus
procedures for investigating suspected illegal or prohibited activity.

Due to the nature of computer networks, it is impossible to guarantee
prevention of unauthorized access to data that is stored on the
network. System administrators, for many reasons, require access to the
entire network. This level of access gives them
the ability to view any data on the network, including users'
electronic mail correspondence. System administrators are bound
by the above policy, however, the threat of unauthorized access
remains. In addition, recent court rulings have
upheld an organization's right to record electronic correspondence
and use the contents against the author. Pegasus mail gives you
two options for protecting your correspondence. It allows you
to move your mailbox from the network to a local drive. In this case, only new,
unread mail, is stored on the network. Secondly, you can encrypt,
with a special key (password) a piece of mail so that only someone
with the key can read the mail. If you are concerned about e-mail
privacy, contact Computer Services for details about how to implement
either or both of these strategies.